Paper Mill: The Books That I Read

Getting re-acquainted with J.R.R Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy by reading the books that I purchased in the previous sales at Borders, makes the movies feel like a travesty. Sure, they are brilliant examples of cinema, but are they brilliant adaptations? No.

If you worship the movies as a definitive guide to all things regarding the trilogy, I'll advise you to go read the books. What you are watching on screen is a water-downed, butchered, diced and cooked (add in a healthy dash of very nice special effects) "re-imagining" of the author's brilliant work. Sure, you may argue that the books are too long to be adapted in the first place. Hence: "re-imaginations".

Now I've said my piece, I'm actually quite pleased with the 3-tier BILLY book shelf I bought from IKEA and yes, I assembled it single-handedly. Nothing does the male ego better than DIY furniture projects eh? However, the book shelf is way easier when compared to the IKEA workstation that I assembled last year.

Fiction occupies the first row, with it being dominated by the LOTR trilogy along side the almost complete collection of Frank Herbert's Dune saga. There's also the almost complete works of Thomas Harris. While I'm still missing Black Sunday and Hannibal Rising, the latter doesn't seem to be a good buy, having read it at the local bookstore.

An attempt to reduce probably the most evil fictional sociopath of all time to a "set of influences"? Thomas Harris, you are being a bit contradictory, shame on you. The movie "adaption" was atrocious as well, so much unlike Silence of the Lambs.

The rest of the shelves are used to store games (both PC and Nintendo DS, boxes, folded bags, so on and so forth). No pictures this time, but I might take pictures of some things sitting on top of the book shelf. Hint: Star Trek.

New Header

I finally got to change my blog's header background image. Instead of the default background (with its hideous three dots), you now see 2 Be@rbricks instead. As a primer for new visitors, links to my reviews of Nintendo DS games, collectible items (such as gashapon), books and other miscellaneous items can be found on the left side bar.

Masters of Doom - Book Review

When it comes to video games, the frantic exercise of playing a First Person Shooter is bound to set my pulse racing. I'm sure many other gamers feel the same way too, but have you ever wonder about the history of this particular genre?

Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture (339pg.), a book written by David Kushner does a lot to answer questions about the history of First Person Shooters. Focusing on the pioneers of the genre, id Software and its two creators John Carmack and John Romero (hence the two guys in the title), the book is a documentary of sorts.

Starting with their youth, David Kushner gives insight to what made the two guys tick, the point where both personalities met, their resulting success (Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Doom II, Quake), and the resulting split and its aftermath. John Carmack and id Software went on to create hits such as Quake II and Quake III. The book ends with the company working on Doom III.

Splitting with id Software after the development of Quake, John Romero rode his immense popularity and well known prowess as a game designer to create a new company called Ion Storm. This company, which will be later used as reference on what not to do in a games company, was responsible for the flops known as Daikatana and Dominion.

The only good thing that ever came out from it was Deus Ex and even then the game was created by Warren Spector, not John Romero.

This book is an amazing read with a no-holds-barred (and well-researched) look at the pioneers of a genre which I dare say jump-started the entire computer-gaming industry. Hardcore gamers, old-school (retro) gamers and game developers will also notice that the book is chokeful with observations on the game development process for games such as Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Doom II, Quake, Quake II, Heretic, Hexen and Daikatana.

This book definately belongs on the reading list of any fan of the genre and should be available for purchase on Amazon.

GAMEplan's Game.Machines

Having been on vacation and an enforced break from games for the past 2 days has allowed me to catch up on my reading. The books in question are "Common Sense in Project Management" and "The Encyclopedia of Game.Machines :Consoles, Handhelds & Home Computers 1972-2005"

Since I don't want to bore you dear reader, this book review is about the latter. Published by Gameplan, the original writers, translators, editors and photographers have created a labour of love with articles on some 500 machines and 600 pictures.

The hardware described in this encyclopedia covers almost everything from 1972 to 2005. This ranges from the earliest consoles such as the Magnavox Odyssey to those introduced in the renaissance of the video games industry in the 80s such as the Famicom and Sega Master System and then on to the advent of high tech machines such as the PS2. Also included are current generation handheld consoles such as the Nintendo DS and PSP.

Each article comes with a detailed profile with a box containing nice tid bits such as the year the console was introduced, the media type, number of titles developed and the year software support for the console ended. A couple of mistakes aside, this book has been an eye-opening experience on consoles of yester-years with many of them I've not seen before. A useful comparison chart at the end of the book helps put the consoles into perspective in terms of hardware capabilities.

The entire book is in full colour (224 pages) and in my opinion deserves to be in any video game aficionado's or historian's reading list/bookshelf.

This book is available for purchase at Play-Asia (here) or you can try looking at other online bookstores or shops. The ISBN for this book is: 3-00-015359-4